First published 4 May 2022
Star Wars (or Episode IV: A New Hope as it’s been retroactively renamed) was the brainchild of a young filmmaker named George Lucas. Lucas had loved the Flash Gordon serials as a child and this mixed with his belief that the failure of his previous attempt at making a science fiction film (1971’s THX 1138) had failed due to its bleak tone, he decided to make a space opera in a similar vein of his own.
The story is simple enough, farm boy Luke Skywalker finds himself whisked away on an adventure to save a princess from the evil galactic empire alongside wise Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and the space pirate with a hidden heart of gold Han Solo.
Lucas wrote and rewrote numerous drafts over the years until he was satisfied. Several studios turned the film down as sci-fi was seen as children’s fare at the time until 20th Century Fox head Alan Ladd Jr agreed to make it for a (even then quite low) budget of $8 million.
The Star Wars cast
Lucas wanted fresh faces for his main leads, so cast the unknown Mark Hamill as Luke. Carrie Fisher, already somewhat well known as the daughter of Hollywood stars Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher but hadn’t had a breakout role of her own yet, was cast as Princess Leia as she could project the sense of authority despite her young age the character required. Harrison Ford was originally not allowed to audition for the film as Lucas had worked with him on American Graffiti, so initially was only hired to read lines with other actors during auditions but his sardonic and cynical delivery won him the part of Han anyway. The only big names in the cast were horror star Peter Cushing and Oscar winner Sir Alec Guinness.
Problems
Filming the Tunisian desert was plagued by bad weather, and when production moved to Elstree studios in London, Lucas frequently came into conflict with cinematographer over the look of the film. The actors found him uncommunicative, as his only direction generally consisted of simple phrases like “faster” and “more intense”. The film went over budget and three crews were shooting simultaneously in the final week just to get it finished on time. Lucas developed high blood pressure and briefly lost his voice due to the stress of it all.
Special effects
The first edit of the film was a complete disaster, so Lucas sacked the editor and replaced him with his wife Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch, and their work is generally credited with saving the film. Many of the special effects were created using techniques invented especially for the film, however this caused some delays due to effects company ILM struggling to achieve them and lead to them having to finish a year’s worth of effects shots in half that time. The effort was worth it however as finished results were astonishing for their time and influenced many films made afterwards. Another important element of the film is its audio. Ben Burtt’s sound effects and John Williams score are so iconic that even somebody who has never seen the film would easily recognise them.
The success of Star Wars
The film was released on 25 May 25 1977 and was an unprecedented success, becoming the highest grossing film made up to that point (a title it held for 5 years) and won seven Academy Awards. The film was followed by sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the jedi, three prequels between 1999-2005, three more sequels between 2015-2019 and numerous spin offs and merchandise, making Star Wars one of the most lucrative and popular franchises of all time.
For the film’s 20th anniversary in 1997 Lucas created a new ‘Special Edition’ edit of the film, that touched up or outright replaced many of the films more dated effects with CGI and restored some deleted scenes, which he felt better captured his original vision for the film. Each subsequent release has featured even further changes, and the original edit of the film has not been legally available for many years at Lucas’ request.
Regardless of which version you watch, Star Wars remains a wonderful piece of escapist cinema thanks to timeless story of good and evil, memorable characters and fast paced action, and it will no doubt still be enjoyed by many generations to come.
